1. Unit 5: KENNEDY’S LEGACY

2. Foreign Policy & National Defense
20% budget increase for:
New Nuclear Missiles
Nuclear Submarines
Expansion of the Armed Forces – Creation of the Special Forces a.k.a
“Green Berets”
Flexible armed forces

3. Bay of Pigs InvasionApril 17th ,1961
An unsuccessful attack on Cuba
Designed to over-throw the government of Fidel
Cuban refugees trained in U.S. Guatemala to fight Fidel
CIA advised Kennedy to attack
Failure and embarrassment

4. The Cuban Missile Crisis Cools Off
Khrushchev lost prestige
Kennedy was criticized for not communicating with Khrushchev:
Brinkmanship
Had Kennedy given up a chance to take over Cuba?

5. The Berlin Crisis
Kennedy set the tone with Khrushchev:containment of communism.
11 years since the Berlin Air Lift- 3 million people from the east fled.
Khrushchev decided to keep people from fleeing: Berlin Wall on August 13th 1961
It stood for 28 years and 200 people eventually died trying to cross over

6. Avoiding Tensions JFK & Khrushchev
lack of communication and split decisions
Agreed to create a hot-line (ex. the Bat Phone) Communication was key to avoiding a crisis

7. New Frontier Called for Americans to be “new pioneers and explore…
1. science and space,…
2. pockets of ignorance and prejudice
3. unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.”
These ideas drove JFK’s decisions & presidency, though it wasn’t easy
Congress rarely supported him as it was full of Republicans & Southern Democrats

8. Space Program
Soviets win again – April 12th 1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes the 1st human in space
JFK took that challenge:
NASA program would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade
Within a month:
1. Man in space
2. 1st TV satellite later that year
Alan Shepard
TELSTAR Satellite
Yuri Gagarin

9. International Aid
JFK created the Peace Corps = volunteer assistance to work with the developing nations of Asia, Africa, & Latin America
Mostly made up of College students
By ,000 volunteers were in over 60 nations

10. Economics & Civil Rights
Recession had gripped the nation as unemployment was at 6% - Highest since WWII
Deficit spending
Congress Boosted:
1. Minimum Wage = $1.25 an hour
2. Unemployment Insurance extended

11. Economic & Civil Rights Boosts Continued…
Americas poverty
by Michael Harrington’s book “The Other America”
50 million Americans scraped by on less than $1,000 a year
By 1963 Kennedy had presented to congress 1. civil rights bill
2. proposal to cut taxes by over $10 billion